Punishment. The New Rehabilitation
The prison systems in the United States are one of the most unsuccessful systems in the world. For an institution to be up and running even though it consistently fails the people and what it stands for is blasphemy. The whole concept of prison is to not punish, not to destroy families, not to cause mental health issues or even make money. The purpose of prison systems is to rehabilitate those who have bad habits, issues, or make mistakes. If criminals are put in jail to be punished, the government and the criminal justice system needs to state that and make that rule rather than just having this unwritten rule that causes criminals to suffer.
American prisons are filled with millions of people across the country. The prison systems are not organized and actually cause more harm than good. Once an offender enters the prison he or she joins rapist, murders, thieves, and many other types of criminals, which leads to another issue. Should a person who goes to prison for selling drugs be in the same institution as a murderer? Should a person who has known nothing but to fight to solve social problems be arrested and sent to prison with a rapist? Does not matter the level of the crime a person commits, they are going to be sent to an institution where even the biggest and baddest are taken down. This low-level criminal is going to have to fend for themselves and most likely become worse than how they were before entering. Prisons should organize their inmates according to the crime committed, I feel like this approach would be better fitting than just throwing a person where ever there is room.
Inside of prisons, the correctional officers have a reputation for being mean and manipulative for self-gain. Correctional officers do have a tough job and they must protect themselves physically and mentally, but there have to be better ways that correctional officers maintain order and are apart of the rehabilitation process. They are very important and have a huge effect on inmates because these people are the only ones dealing with the inmates on a day-to-day basis. Bettering correctional officers would be another step for rehabbing inmates since that is the “purpose” of prison.
Not expecting all of the prison system to be fixed, but there are little things that are possible to change to make the rehabilitation process more efficient. There are too many offenders who serve time, are released, and end up back in prison. For a lot of individuals, prison has become a home, a lifestyle, or even a habit because of an immense amount of time spent there. These individuals are not released feeling better about themselves or willing to change. Most of them know they will go out, continue the lifestyle they lived before prison, make the same mistake and end up back in prison.
Overall, there needs to be change, some type of change in the way the system rehabilitates people, or the system could change the rule from rehabilitation to punishment. That way at least the people will understand, it does not seem like the people are being lied to, and the system does not appear to be doing whatever it wants. There are too many people in these institutions for the institution to be failing. Maybe we should try a different type of institution for criminal rehab. If there were any other institutions with these failures, it would be shut down almost instantly. The prison institution should be held to the same standard.